OpenSuSE 10.3 Review

[gampy]

This is not actually a 'how-to', but I honestly couldn't think of a better place to post this thread. The following comments are, of course, my personal findings.

SuSE Linux 10.3 x86 32 Bit Review: By Gampy

PREFACE:

Anyone who is very well acquainted with me knows that I don't typically like to upgrade software on a regular basis. It tends to cause more problems than I care to deal with. I much prefer to get my computers operating as stable as possible - even if it means doing without some of the bells n' whistles or new 'bling' features. Well, I recently went ahead and upgraded my personal Linux system to SuSE 10.3. I'm very glad that I took the plunge.

Firstly, I backed up my Linux (ReiserFS) partition to an adjacent FAT32 partition using Acronis True Image bootable CD. If things didn't work out, I could restore my Linux system perfectly within 30 minutes.

INSTALLATION:

Rather than formatting my Linux partition and running a 'clean' installation, I figured I would try out an upgrade installation. It worked perfectly. The upgrade installation finished in under 30 minutes. All hardware on my Pentium 4 system was detected easily and automatically configured. Previous settings were retained so I didn't have to redo my personal configurations.

The installation process is very easy. It's all step-by-step using a very attractive and intuitive GUI. No more cryptic 'old skool' text-based installations. (Unless, of course, you're a propeller head like me and want/need to use a text-based installation for server installations, etc..)

UPGRADE FIXED SOME ISSUES:

I previously had SuSE 10.2 installed and running quite nicely, but I was having a few little 'pain in the neck' issues with it. It had trouble with my 4-port USB hub in that whenever I needed one of the USB devices attached to it, I had to unplug it from the system and reconnect it. I then had to wait a minute or so while SuSE figured out what it was and what to do with it. This was a real inconvenience for me because of my external HDD and printer both operating from off of the USB hub. The new SuSE 10.3 has totally fixed this USB bug. My USB connectivity now works flawlessly!

Another 'pain-in-the-neck' issue that I was having with previous Linux distributions, was that my Linux system was not accessing SAMBA networking shares on my Linux server with the correct permissions. Our Windows PCs could always connect the SAMBA shares with the correct permissions, as though the network shares were on an actual Windows server. However, my Linux desktop always used local UNIX permissions. This meant that although I could connect to the network shares just fine, I didn't have appropriate permissions to move, delete, copy, and create files & folders. This is no longer the case, and my SAMBA networking is every bit as good under Linux as it is under Windows. I'm very pleased that this major issue that finally got resolved. (And yes, the SAMBA configuration on the Linux server is, and always has been, correct.)

KDE DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT:

The KDE 3.5.5 GUI and Desktop environment built into SuSE 10.2 worked very, very well and was certainly a little 'snappier' than previous versions. Fortunately, the newer KDE 3.5.6 in SuSE 10.3 is even faster. It maintains the faster performance while managing to look even a little prettier. *grin* For anyone used to working within Windows, the KDE desktop will be very easy to migrate to. Lots of 'right click' options and a very intuitive file management system (a.k.a. similar to MS Windows Explorer).

CONFIGURE DESKTOP RESOLUTION:

I have an NVIDIA video card installed in my system. Configuring my desktop resolution, colors, refresh rate, etc., is now just as easy under Linux as it is within Windows. The NVIDIA Linux drivers include a extensive display control panel that allows you to make adjustments and apply them on-the-fly. The settings can be saved for each subsequent login.

CD/DVD & USB AUTOMOUNT:

SuSE 10.3 finally gets the 'automount' feature working every bit as well as it typically would within Windows XP. No more dealing with SCSI emulation or inconsistent auto-mounting of your USB drives or CD/DVD drives. Smooth, seamless operation. When you press the 'eject' button on your DVD drive, it now opens without having to resort to any little Linux trickery on the command line.

CONTROL PANEL:

Yast2 in SuSE 10.3 (a.k.a. similar to Windows Control Panel) is not only very attractive, but all of its applets work quickly and very well. It's also intuitively laid out and is easy for novices to navigate through the various elements.

MULTIMEDIA FEATURES:

Over the past couple of years, MP3 and DVD playback has been 'disabled' in newly released distributions due to legal schmegal reasons. You had to 'hack' Linux to get it working. It is rather ironic, when you consider that these very technologies started out in the Open Source world. Hmmmm . . . nasty old Microsoft and DRM malarky. Fortunately, MP3 playback works out of the box under SuSE 10.3. Getting DVD playback working still requires manually compiling and installing XINE (http://xinehq.de) for yourself, but it's really not very difficult. (Perhaps I should post an auxiliary article explaining how it's done?)

1 CLICK SOFTWARE INSTALL:

SuSE 10.3 now provides a VERY cool option that has been slow in the coming to the world of Linux desktops. This feature is called '1 click install'. Xandros Linux (http://www.xandros.com/) and Linspire (http://www.linspire.com/) have offered proprietary offerings of this nature, but this is the first "Open Source" offering of this kind. Also bare in mind that while they are nowhere near as expensive as Windows XP or Windows Vista, neither Linspire nor Xandros are free. They are both commercially sold versions of Linux packaging.

1 click install is available for installing NVIDIA and ATI video drivers. '1-Click Install' is an extremely useful feature included in OpenSuSE 10.3. It is effortless to use and is the need of the hour for success of Linux on the desktop. Apt-get (Debian) is easy, but then this is even better. Clicking on links for 1-Click Install opens a .ymp file and the associated application is called "YAST Meta Package Handler". In reality, it required 3 clicks, but one was "Next" and other was a security warning. Both good things, right?? I think Linspire tried something similar, but OpenSuse's technique looks slick and is FREE!

AUTOMATIC SYSTEM UPDATES:

The AutoUpdater Applet is an interesting addition to OpenSuSE 10.3 and is extremely useful for quick updating and bug fixes. It uses YAST's modules (which inturn uses zypper) in the background and works pretty good, checking from OpenSuSE's official update repository.

Adding additional installation sources for software updates is now so, so simple. Rather than manually having to acquire the http address and add them, SuSE 10.3 includes a pre-configured list of repositories that's as simple as checking the box(s) that you want from the list and clicking 'Apply'. I added the Mozilla repository and was able to effortlessly update the Firefox browser and all necessary dependencies - all without having to manually select the individual packages.

CLOSING ARGUMENTS, YOUR HONOR:

Want speed and stability? Interested in trying an alternate OS that's built on top of the time proven reliability of UNIX? Then give SuSE 10.3 a try. It's very easy to dual boot your PC, especially if you add a dedicated harddrive for Linux. Personally, I have a dedicated Linux partition, but that gets off into a technical area outside the scope of this review.

[klackenfus]

Are you 64 bit or 32 bit? I'm sorry if you already said this but I'm 64 bit, so this becomes important.

[nikodell]

I have run OpenSuse since SuSe 4 or so. A long time I have allays had at least one system running it, Mostly now I have used this on 2 different 64bit systems and have had no problems with version updates although I miss the function switch to update to just disk software as this was a good option when you know that you will have to remove and reinstall packages anyhow and for my purpose was easier than going through an manually dealing with each package that the installer cannot resolve or update. As far as I know now this is the easiest 64/32 hybrid os to deal with. Others may be catching up but I have not personally used them to date.


Gentoo for speed and control and an occasional mind bender.

Ubuntu for mom and the family they love it and do not miss bill one bit.

OpenSuSe other than the early 10.2 zypp fiasco IT JUST WORKS!!! so easy it is a bore.

[gampy]

Woops! I've just edited my post. Sorry, I should have mentioned, but I'm using the 32 bit installation on a Pentium 4, 3.06 Ghz HT system. :o

Are you 64 bit or 32 bit? I'm sorry if you already said this but I'm 64 bit, so this becomes important.

[fishface]

Hi Gampy,

Hope you can offer some advice as I'm thinking of moving one of our file servers from SLES10 to 10.3 using the upgrade path, I usually go from a clean install, but an upgrade might be useful.

First thing, did you chose Reiser because you were already using that? SLES10 used Resier by default (which is my current config, however all data is on ext3) but after it's creator ended up in jail (or so I believe) they switched to ext3 from 10.1 onwards.

Secondly, I have certain areas partition, for example, /, /var /usr - will this throw out the new upgrade interface/GUI?

I've used 10.3 for a few weeks on a test bed and on the face of it seems slightly snappier, and I agree with the DVD/CD mount thing, I still have issue with that with SLES10, but 10.3 it works real good.

Never had a problem with Samba though, well a few teething problems, I use Samba for single sign on domain wide across Windows and Linux and it works well, as we have Windows and Linux users, I use it in ADS mode.

[blackbelt_jones]

I'm running it on one of my boxes. It's SUSE all right-- slick, solid, and replete with GUIs within GUIs. If you're a suse veteran, you may want to know if YAST is still really really slow. The surprising answer is no! YAST is now really really really slow... but it's still a great tool that makes it easy to handle any administrative task with a nice big GUI. Some would say that is worth the wait.

They seem to have gotten rid of zenworks. This is interesting, cause I think adding zenworks played a big part in the short-lived fiasco that was suse10.1. That was the worst release of a major distro that I have ever personally tried, and people are still talking about it. I have found people referring to the problems with SUSE 10.1. in forums. On two different occasions I encountered a Windows fanboy and a Debian fanboy, and neither was willing to let it go. I can't remember where I got the idea... it may be a rumor, or maybe even something I came up with myself after reading several articles and trying to put the facts together, but somewhere I got the impression that Dell was poised to release openSUSE on preinstalled Linux machines, and went with Ubuntu after 10.1 came out. If there's anything to that, it might make SUSE 10.1 the most costly mistake in Linux distro history. As terrible as suse10.1 with it broken package manager, suse recovered quickly.

These days, I like to use old computers, and opensuse 10.2 definitely performed better on old hardware than the newer 10.3. It also annoys me that with 10.3, Konqueror is preset to open at opensuse.org, and I don't know how to switch it back to the usual Konqueror homepage of links. Firefox is already using opensuse.org as the default homepage, and there's a link to opensuse.org on firefox toolbar. Are they afraid I'll forget the url? Fortunately, I use fluxbox, so I can make konqueror open whereever I like by editing the menu.